One of the claims to the authenticity of the Torah is that there is an unbroken chain – the descendants of those who spent 40 years in the desert all hearing the word of the Creator all witnessed numerous miracles. This is laid out in the book of Exodus / Shemos, where one event is more miraculous than the last. Their descendants (the Jews) are still around to tell you about how their great-great-great-[insert a few more here]-grandparents were there. That’s our family tradition, and in fact, the holiday of Passover is dedicated to reliving it as if we were there ourselves. We use this holiday to pass down the story to our children.

You could make up a story about one man hearing the word of G_d who says “it happened to me” and some people will believe it. (They’re not all true unless there really are a bunch of contradictory religions out there … but that goes under the “we’re-all-doomed-if-that’s-true” category, much like the negative pascal wager argument). However, you can’t convince someone that something happened to you if it didn’t happen to them.

At a holiday party, I overheard a Torah observant Jew say, “The unbroken chain argument is a pretty strong argument, but I have yet to actually see such an unbroken chain. Does anyone really have a family tree going back that far?” I walked over, because, in fact … yes, my wife has such a family tree! I did some searching, and such trees aren’t readily published, but if you go on Geni.com and know where to look, they’re pretty easy to find … and made public. Geni.com is a collaborative family tree which I have used as a tool to locate many distant relatives. Some trees, such as my wife’s, go all the way back to Adam. I’ll take this from there through the generations as far as Elias Munk, my wife’s third-great grandfather who lived between 1818 and 1900. At the time of this writing, he has 710 descendants on the tree, including my wife and children in the United States. Others are in places from Israel to France to Australia to the United Kingdom. Let’s get started.

First, lineage in the written Torah itself is recorded from Adam, the first man, through Noach (you know, the flood…), Abraham, Moses, and King David (just before the first Temple period). The earlier lineage is found in Bereshis [Genesis] Chapter 5, and the miraculous stuff in exiting Egypt and the wilderness, and so on … that’s more or less the entire book of Shemos [Exodus] and much of Devarim [Deuteronomy]. Moses’s brother was Aaron. Aaron’s wife was Elisheva [Shemos 6:23]. Her brother is Nachshon Ben Aminadav. According to Jewish tradition, he was the first one in the water when the river split, exiting from Egypt.

Now, we can take this all the way to King David rather simply. The very end of the book of Ruth, canonized in the Tanuch [Hebrew Bible] lists the generations from there to King David, emphasis added:

There are, in fact, many Jews who can trace their lineage from King David. This may be because the line of kingship will never depart from David’s descendants, so the descendants have been careful (and proud) to keep track of this knowledge. Amongst other places, this fact is also recorded in the written Torah (Divrei Hayamim 2, 13:5):

Now, as I get closer in time, I’ve discovered there are often more and more paths to get from King David to my wife. For sake of brevity, I’m going to follow just one very direct path. For background, the Babylonian Exile continued from the destruction of the First Temple period (only a small percentage of Jews went back to Israel during the Second Temple period) through about the 1930s when, due to persecution and Zionism, Jews started returning to Israel in great numbers. In the 1800s the city of Baghdad was between 1/3 and 1/4 Jewish (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Iraq for more information)!

An “exilarch”, by the way, is the spiritual leader of the generation in exile. A “nasi” is the “president” or one who runs the civil affairs of the community, as I understand it. These exilarchs were careful to record their genealogy, and those who have learned the Talmud will recognize many of these names. Some of the generations listed above are actually in Israel . . . such as the goans of Tiberias, a city in Israel where a fairly constant Jewish presence remained throughout history, in addition to Tzfas (not far from there) and, of course, Jerusalem.

The tree above actually takes us all the way to about 1060 CE. This is already the time of the famous Rishonim such as Rashi, the Rambam, and the Ramban. (My wife is actually a direct descendant of Rashi in at least two different ways, but the tree from King David is less direct that way.)

Around 1085, things went fairly well for the Jews in Spain. There were some religious-inspired attacks on the Jews (you know, like the Crusades…) but otherwise the Jewish population grew along with Torah scholarship. This lasted until 1492. Here’s the line of my wife’s tree extending from Yitzhak ben Chyzkia (see above) to Josef Halevi of Horovice:

Note that the names also are spanish-ified. Now we have “Felez” and “Perfet” and “Benveniste”. Note also that while my wife is quite Ashkenazi (of Eastern European descent), as am I, neither of us can do this with our trees through Eastern Europe. We have to go the Sefardi route, probably because Ashkenazi Jews were more persecuted (probably descending from jews in Italy, taken captive after Rome destroyed the second Temple in 70 CE) and less stably located throughout the course of history. Through the Sefardi line, we’ve gone about two thousand years with only two major location changes. (An interesting side-note is that through population genetics, there’s probably no such thing as a “purely Ashkenazi” Jew – just a slight amount of intermarriage with Sefardim means that we’re all mixed together at this point. See http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/10/the-universality-of-sephardic-ethnicity-as-explained-by-mathematical-genealogy/ for more on this – my wife’s tree is very strong evidence that his mathematical postulating is quite correct.)

So why did Mar Solomon (the first in Spain) move from Iraq to Spain? Well, the history books tell us he was a knight who commanded armies and was a personal advisor to the Knig of Aragon. Read more about him on his Geni profile.

Then why did Josef Halevi (the last in Spain) leave for Bohemia? It wasn’t the inquisition, as he died about forty years prior, but things were already getting worse for the Jews in Spain. I can only speculate as to the true reason. It needs further study.

From here, again we can take a variety of paths. The shortest one goes through the famous Rabbinic family, the Katzenellenbogen family. Many still have this last name today and are known for not only their well respected lineage, but also for having a street name in Har Nof, Jerusalem and the longest Jewish last name:

So there you have it. Again, any of the links will take you to more information about the person. This takes us through what is today the Czech Republic, Germany, and sometimes a bit through France and other surrounding countries. My wife’s grandmother (the great-granddaughter of Elias Munk), along with many other descendants of Elias Munk and King David, again live in Israel. She tells me that when she grew up in Germany it was a requirement to have your family tree documentation. Thus, German Jews tend to know their family trees very well. For those of us from further to the East in Europe . . . not so much.

You see, the Torah doesn’t claim that there are only Jews in the world or that everyone is supposed to be Jewish. It’s a discipline and a responsibility. Rather, there are 70 nations each with different purposes. The Jews are chosen for one, but surely there are reasons for the others. Ishmael, for example, is another son of Abraham. The Creator promises Ishmael’s mother that he’ll be great too [Bereshis / Genesis 17]. The Arabs claim descent from here, so shouldn’t they also have a family tree extending back that far? In fact, evidence from other cultures with their own biases would serve to confirm the authenticity of the genealogical claims. Then, through conversation (both from and to Judaism), thanks to the math of population genetics, we’re not only physically descended from Isaac, but through the close proximity in Iraq and Spain for about 1500 years, we should also be descended from Ishmael, and probably many others, for that matter. Here’s another tree I ran across:

That takes us from Ishmael through his descendants all the way to the Saasanid Empire (224 – 650 CE or so) in Babylonia (Iraq). This is the period, as described above, when the Babylonian Talmud was written and the Jews and Arabs got along the best in history, just before the arrival of Islam. I’d also imagine that the “PBUH” and “Imaam” tags were only added post-humorously.

It turns out that Yitzhak ben Chyzkia, Nasi, who was leader of the Jewish people in Iraq and went to Span (see above) was also a direct descendant of Ishmael! Through this line are many of the leaders of the Saasinid Empire. Adai bint Assad ibn Hashim seems to be close family with many rules of the Saassanid Empire and converted to Judaism. Now I’m not quite sure how Saddam Hussein and other modern figures in Iraqi history fit on the tree, but suffice to say … we’re all cousins.

So there it is – at least two unbroken chains. Again, I have chosen only two lines for purposes of illustration. One goes through many great leaders of the Jewish people, and another through our cousins the Arabs . . . and then back to the Jews. There are many more historical trees which take us back through there. If child, parent, and grand-parent sat at a Seder together to retell the story of our ancestors in Egypt, we need only select about 40 Passover seders in history to find a direct line of transmission from the entire Jewish people living miraculously in the desert for forty years until today. This is the basis of Jewish belief.

If this Zerachia ha-Levi of Girona is the same Ba’al ha-Maor, the following link lists his father as Isaac ha-Levi, son of Zerachiah ha-Levi (the elder), son of Shem Tov Ha-Levi. That would rule out him being the son of Meshulam Shlomo Yitzhak ben Yosef as the grandfather and great greatfather do not match. If you are solely using the Geni entries listed as reference, I’ve found several discrepancies in generations and names from this series of entries. There are duplicate entries, and I believe some of them have been confused for others with similar names.

Zerachiah was born into a Rabbinic family called Yitzhari of Girona. His father was Isaac Ha-Levi, a Talmudic scholar in Provence, and the son of Zerachiah Ha-Levi, his namesake. The elder Zerachiah was a son of Shem Tov Ha-Levi, one of the greatest Talmudic scholars in Provence, who claimed direct descent of the prophet Samuel, who according to Jewish tradition was a direct descendant of Yitzhar (hence the family name “Ha-Yitzhari”), son of Kehath, son of Levi, son of Jacob.

I am not familiar with all the details of the people you are referring to, but I concede that I too have found difficulties with the tree I published in this blog article a few years ago. It also relies on a connection between the Horvice family in Spain and Horowitz in Prague which I’ve since found doesn’t have so much evidence. Perhaps the tree on Geni is more accurate now that there are “curators” of these profiles who are professional genealogists, but at best, it seems there is guesswork in more than one place.

I came across this article as I was following back my family tree and intersected with this tree with Rita Horowitz of 1486-1533. In trying to follow your unbroken chain, I am not finding the common person between the Spanish and the Babylonian chains. The Spainish chain starts with Yitzahak, 1005-1080 born in Spain. I am not able to find this person’s name or birthdate in the Babylonian chain. Any guidance on the link between these two chains would be most welcome.

The information I have is from a published book on the descendants of the Wurzberger Rebbe (1979 … a new version is being worked on by one of the descendants) and simply working collaboratively with people on Geni.com.

There is a ba’al tesuvah in my community who has a degree in Egyptology. (He became an accountant because he needed a real job.) He holds that the Ipuwer Papyrus has nothing to do with the Exodus … he said that ancient Egypt had a whole genre of “calamity writing”, maybe something like how today we have Steven King novels. He’s the only expert in the field I’ve ever talked to, so for now, I’m going with his opinion. 🙂

Also, there are two distinct forms of chains that I was speaking about (as the Torah observant Jew who you paraphrased).

1) The Kuzari Claim – A claim that 600,000 people witnessed the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai and that we have descendants of those people to bear witness through the generations.

2) Halacha LeMoshe MiSina – A claim that there is leadership chain of oral law from Moshe to Yehoshua and down through the generations. The early portion of that chain is captured by the Rambam and presented these days by Lawrence Kelemen.

The claim that we’re discussing is #1. I like to understand the veracity of the claim. The specific question I had wasn’t about a single lineage, but one about a huge chain of the descendants of 600,000 men. In Tanach, there were at least 250 years where the vast majority of Israelites did not practice the religion. There were a small sect of believers who would have passed on the belief to their descendants. It’s hard for me to understand how that period would have strengthened the Kuzari Claim.

I’m not that knowledgeable in the period in Tanuch, but a “small sect of believers” doesn’t faze me. Since when have believing Jews been anything other than that? That seems to be how G_d wants it and a better question might be, “why?” Our literature (midrashim) says the world is really created for the select few tzadikkim (extremely righteous people) and everything else is to support them. This is echoed in the design of the universe – they physical universe has such a tiny place where life can exist, and within that, we are one species of many, a tiny amount by biomass or number compared to others. Within that, the Jews are a small percentage. Within that, a small percentage are even “on the derech”. Of those, how many are really living up to their potential?

Look at the situation today. It’s not much different – the vast majority of Jews denies the authenticity of the Torah, but this is mostly due to lack of education and counter-education in philosophies which are antithetical to Torah-true Judaism (e.g. my reform Hebrew school and the slant in the current general philosophies of the United States). Even in the time period we’re talking about – Exhodus from Egypt, the midrash tells us that even in Egypt only 1 in 6 Hebrews were saved.

Back to your Tanach example – If anything, this shows even more consistency in the design and in how people are. The Tanuch didn’t ‘make up’ such a thing, because, after all, who would make up something like, “this is the truth but the majority aren’t living up to it.” We may not have all the answers, as to “why” but the “what” seems to present a very consistent and believable picture. Absolute proof it is not, but the more I study and the more I question, the more sense it does make.

In any case, I think the line I have presented (the first one) is without breakage in the chain of transmission…

The comment wasn’t about your thoughts at all. It’s purely about the veracity of the claim of a large unbroken chain going back to Har Sinai. There was a small chain of people who claimed to have heritage back to Har Sinai; that’s different from the Kuzari claim.

Solomon, that would be because most people can’t *document* a specific linage.

The vast number of ALL people in the entire [Western] World can NOT trace their lineage past the 1700s because it was only then when records started to become much more common AND had a chance of the records surviving to present time. If you look at the World Family Tree on Geni, then you will notice that past a certain point, the vast majority of profiles are through European “nobility” of various sorts

The typical Jewish family tree (about 80-90% of those I have seen) is no more than 7 generations “deep”. Why that number? Because those would be the direct ORAL traditions in the family – what a person’s great-grandfather had heard /knew of HIS own grandfather. Being *constantly* on the move, especially when due to persecution, does NOT make record-keeping very easy.

If you look at the World Family Tree on Geni, then you will notice that going back in time, past a certain point, the vast majority of profiles are through European “nobility” of various sorts. Because practically no-one else even could keep records. At the same time, in most of Europe, the Jews were “un-people” having little or no official records at all. As recently as 1922, my own grandmother, born in Hungary/Romania did NOT have a birth-certificate, was literally “not born”, until 1945!

To “Patently Jewish”, thanks for the recognition of the hard work of many Geni users. Shmuel-Aharon Kam, Biblical Curator for Geni

You leave off with “If the Exodus didn’t happen, how did such a story get passed down?” The closest narrative that we have for the type of story of Yetzias Mitzrayim is the story of how the Egyptians were saved by a diety from the the Hyksos invaders around 1,700 BCE.

I’m not a scholar in this area of the Hyksos but it seems to be in a very similar time and place as the Jewish account. If the miraculous Exodus happened with the plagues and so forth, one would expect there to be evidence from other people. Just as the Arab tradition of a lineage back to Ishmael tends to lend credence to the narrative, so would such claims of mass salvation by the Egyptians, and for that matter, mass flood stories as far flung as the Phillipines and, of course, in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

In my brief Googling I am unable to find the “saved by a diety” claim with the Hyksos, but is it something that’s passed down among the living who were actually there and witnessed it or an after the fact story? Is it written in one text, or passed down as having actually happened to the tellers ancestors? That is, is it in the form of “a revelation happened to him” or “a revelation happened to me”? Even if the former are answered to the strong side, is it over a period of 40 years, or a one time event which is easier to fake, misunderstand, or make up?